Section of Okeechobee Waterway in Martin set for dredging in next 2 years has low levels of banned pesticides

Location: 900 feet northwest of the St. Lucie Lock and Dam and about 5,500 feet south-southwest of the intersection of Florida's Turnpike and Interstate 95

Description: Permanent facility to process material removed from the Okeechobee Waterway from just south of the Palm City Bridge to the St. Lucie Lock and Dam

Site size: 77.29 acres

Containment basin: 32.63 acres

Basin capacity: 564,124 cubic yards

Construction dates: 2012 and 2013

Anticipated construction cost: $1.9 million

Dredging project: 2013

Amount to be dredged: 55,000 to 110,000 cubic yards

Anticipated dredging cost: $1.6 million

PORT SALERNO — DDT and other pesticides have been found in sediment in a section of the Okeechobee Waterway that could be dredged as soon as 2013, but state officials said the amounts were below levels environmental officials consider dangerous.

The Florida Inland Navigation District plans to dredge the waterway between the St. Lucie Lock and the Palm City Bridge in 2013 or 2014, FIND Executive Director David Roach said Friday during a FIND Commission meeting at Pirates Cove Resort and Marina.

FIND plans to build a 32-acre earthen basin north of the Okeechobee Waterway near the St. Lucie Lock in late 2012 to process the dredged sediment, Roach said during an update on the district's Martin County projects.

The total cost for the sediment facility and the dredging project is expected to approach $3.5 million, district records show. About 48,000 cubic yards of sediment will be dredged from the navigation channel.

Sediment samples taken from the Okeechobee Waterway contain pesticides and metals in levels that could adversely affect wildlife, FIND records show.

"DDT or its derivatives were present in several samples at concentrations exceeding the level at which adverse biological effects may occur," said FIND's July 1998 plan for managing material dredged from the waterway. "Chlordane was present in nearly all of the samples at concentrations exceeding the level at which adverse biological effects are likely."

Both agricultural pesticides, whose use is no longer approved in the United States, are considered a "probable human carcinogen," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency records show.

However, Steven Schropp, a vice president at Taylor Engineering of Jacksonville, which serves as district engineer for FIND, said the levels of DDT and Chlordane are below Florida Department of Environmental Protection standards for soils after a cleanup, district records show.

"In a nutshell, while DDT derivatives DDE and DDD were detected, they were in extremely small concentrations that fall well below FDEP (Florida Department of Environmental Protection), regulatory concentration levels for soils," Roach said in an email.